‘The Station Agent’ is a fine first effort

In theaters

THE STATION AGENT, Written and directed by Thomas McCarthy, 88 minutes, rated R. Now playing, The Grand, Ellsworth, and the Colonial, Belfast.

Thomas McCarthy’s “The Station Agent” is the story of Finbar McBride (Peter Dinklage), an intellectual dwarf who became an unwanted celebrity, of sorts, because of his size.

At 4-foot-5-inches, he can’t go anywhere without drawing a crowd, generating a cruel remark from a stranger, being looked upon with sympathy, or – worse for Finbar – being mistaken for a child by a child.

As such, Fin’s life has been shaped by a world eager to ridicule him. He’s a man of the fewest words, reluctant to make personal connections because of the disappointment that have often accompanied them.

If this sounds depressing, it isn’t.

The great achievement of “The Station Agent” is that it isn’t nearly as maudlin or as bitter as it could have been in the wrong hands.

Fortunately, it also isn’t as opportunistic.

While it’s true that the film’s initial quirks are driven by Finbar’s awkward interactions with people, some of whom actually yelp when they see him, the movie, from McCarthy’s own script, gradually becomes something you don’t expect: a story about the necessity of friendship and the risks it can take for some to plunge into it.

The title is derived from Finbar’s interest in trains. He loves them, studies them and even – by the sheer happenstance of an unexpected inheritance – finds himself living near them in an old train station in Newfoundland, N.J.

It’s there that he meets Joe (Bobby Cannavale), a jovial, lonely lug who for weeks has been tending to his father’s lunch truck while the man recuperates from illness. It’s also there that he is nearly run down twice by Olivia (Patricia Clarkson), a distracted local artist whose marriage fell apart after the accidental death of her son.

If it weren’t for the rambunctious, extroverted Joe, who has the sort of rare, affable personality that’s hard to resist, “The Station Agent” might have been a silent film, such is the depth of Fin and Olivia’s need for solitude and quiet.

For the first half of the movie they don’t get much of either, with Joe endlessly trying to fill the space between them with words. Still, as the movie unfolds and these three fall into an unexpected friendship, it’s the silences that come to define them and the movie, with McCarthy understanding that the best relationships are those in which the pressure of talking for the sake of talking doesn’t exist.

Add to this Fin’s fleeting flirtation with the town’s pregnant librarian, Emily (Michelle William), and his funny interactions with the chubby young Cleo (Raven Goodwin), and you have a fine first effort that’s well worth seeing.

Grade: B+

On video and DVD

INTOLERABLE CRUELTY, Directed by Joel Coen, written by Robert Ramsey, Matthew Stone, Ethan Coen and Joel Coen, 100 minutes, rated PG-13.

Somewhere in the world, probably where they harvest supermodels, there is a better looking, more talented and charismatic couple than George Clooney and Catherine Zeta-Jones. I’m sure they’re very pleased knowing that, and I know we all wish them well.

Still, until they show up in their own movie, audiences have the opportunity to feast their eyes on the near physical perfection of Clooney and Zeta-Jones in “Intolerable Cruelty,” Joel and Ethan Coen’s screwy romantic farce.

The film stars Clooney as Miles Massey, an unscrupulous Los Angeles divorce attorney who becomes obsessed by Zeta-Jones’ Marylin Rexroth, a gorgeous minx who has earned a living by marrying wealthy men and then, when the time comes to divorce them for half their net worth, dropping them like yesterday’s maxed-out credit cards.

Though Miles is aware that Marylin will do anything and anyone to achieve financial independence, he nevertheless becomes obsessed with her and her beauty, so much so that he wants her for himself, in spite of the fact that he knows he’ll never fully be able to trust her. It’s just that air of mistrust that sours the last act of the movie.

It’s strange. Clooney and Zeta-Jones were obviously hired to be treated as objects of desire here, but by not allowing them to follow through with the formidable spark they create onscreen, one has to wonder, what’s the point of the movie? Intolerable audience cruelty? Apparently so.

The film has a lot going for it – a gem of a premise, funny supporting turns from a talented cast, and one of the most surprising, outrageous laughs tucked in a movie last year. Still, it comes up short.

Clooney is game and gives the film its manic energy, but Zeta-Jones is underused. She’s little more than an undulating clothes hanger, a smoky-eyed set piece draped in haute couture who has all the likability of a shark. The Coens don’t seem to know what to do with her, which may hint at their own intimidation with her looks and talent, and their movie, in the end, becomes as chilly as the characters themselves.

Grade: B-

Christopher Smith is the Bangor Daily News film critic. His reviews appear Mondays and Fridays in Style and at 5:30 p.m. Thursdays on WLBZ 2 and WCSH 6. They are archived at RottenTomatoes.com. He may be reached at BDNFilm1@aol.com.